The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-11
Written for The Arkdnsdc Tt'dveler
 Gathering Holey-Husks.
BY EFFIE NJ. HUDDLEsTON.

Rain as bright as diamond dust was falling fast. The sparkling beads broke upon the fresh young leaves, trembled from the twigs and dripped in glittering fragments from the peach trees tasseled pink. Like merry feet the drops trampled over the roof, sped lightly away to return again in few minutes with maddening haste. Out on the hard pavement these many foot falls sounded like the wild dance of little demons, but upon the milky Tipped lilies along the border they seemed to fall as lightly as the fairies silver -shod feet.
 "How bright and beautiful!" cried Ada. looking out, but it is as damp walk will have to be given up for this evening""
 ''It seems so," said Mrs. Rose, giving her soft gingham a feminine sweep, ''but see, the blue birds are out, jubi- lantly plucking their plumage. That is an indication of clearing weather. so perhaps we may be able to go after all. And there comes Clinton striding across my Canterbury beds. Nothing short of a flood or cyclone can exile a lover, whatever lesser storms may separate the husband and wife" And with a twitter of delight Mrs. Rose Avery fled from the room. Mir. Paul Clinton Brown, or, as the little card over the office in NJ G. ex- pressed it, P. Clinton Brown, swung himself in under the low pointed DOT tico.
 "You were hardly expecting me-" said he, looking at Ada, "but it was awtully dull at the office, and you know good company spans a wet af- ternoon like a rainbow"
 But do you think we will be forced to give up our expedition?" said Ada, anxious to avoid an all evening tete-a-tete with this young fellow. 'We are so anxious to gather the honey -husks to-day. Oh, think it will clear up in time for us to go."
 "Perhaps," replied Clinton. ''I think the disposition of the weather rather feminine" as he swept aside the creamy folds of curtain "See, the sun is shining"
 Mrs. Rose had called these two lovers. but in reality no words of love had ever passed between them, nor had those telegraphic lines, the hands and eyes ever passed between them those silent messages of love, which thrill like electrical fire, and which require no words for expression.
 Miss Ada Thurston, in answer to an invitation from her old school friend, Mrs. Rose Avery, who was cousin to Clinton Brown, had arrived at the little chocolate -colored cottage two weeks before. Mrs. Rose had wished her dear friend to see her home under the most favorable as- pect of early spring; she had also wished to indulge her match making proclivities between her fair friend and her cousin Clinton, and, although this latter clause was not expressed, il had been most easily understood by Ada, who highly resented the manner in which she had been made the vic- tim of horrible conspiracy. As thin as flame were the walls behind which Mrs. Rose Avery planned her deeI plots to bring these two together, and which Ada, viewing through the transparency, determined to thwart That Clinton Brown was interesting handsome and intellectual did not matter-she did not fancy a ready. made match; that he was kind. hearted and agreeable made no differ. ence-hearts were not disposed of by proxy that they were in every way suited to one another mattered not she had come to him, but she would show them all that she was no husband huntress-and at the thought her lips curled like red rose leaves. In half ar hour the raindrops had dried, tho flowers had opened their fragran, gates to the pale butterflies, and the persimmon trees across the road had begun to shed their showers of tiny white cups.
 Ada hastened off to get knives and baskets. "Are you ready, Rose?" she called to Mrs. Avery, whom she wa. surprised to find out in the kitchen with cook book in one hand and sauce- nan in the other, and with a cloud oi -four on her fair, crimpled bangs
 "Really, dear, you must go without me-" said Mrs. Rose mefrily. "I can-